Buying Woes

[Rocket1k78]

Originally posted by HiTempguy1


WTF do you think a tech at a dealership/shop does? Pull the motor and transmission apart to inspect the bearings??

Point is that a PPI on a private vehicle is nothing more than a feel good. It could save you from MAJOR blatantly obvious issues. Not arguing against that. But those should be readily apparent.

Probably the biggest thing a PPI is good for is accident damage and repairs that haven't been noted.

Nobody said anything about dis mantling a motor or tranny so easy on the conclusion jumping Congrats to you for knowing what to look for but for the person that has no idea what to look for its not as simple as you say. On all the cars ive owned the leaks have always traveled down so its not always visible just by looking from the top and anything new is covered to the point where all you can see or have access to is the dip stick. For the 200 it costs for a ppi its worth it on anything of value and like you said they might even catch accidents that havent been reported. Look at how many people buy cars with no accidents noted and then years later the car turns out to be flooded.

[Thaco]

Originally posted by Rocket1k78


Nobody said anything about dis mantling a motor or tranny so easy on the conclusion jumping Congrats to you for knowing what to look for but for the person that has no idea what to look for its not as simple as you say. On all the cars ive owned the leaks have always traveled down so its not always visible just by looking from the top and anything new is covered to the point where all you can see or have access to is the dip stick. For the 200 it costs for a ppi its worth it on anything of value and like you said they might even catch accidents that havent been reported. Look at how many people buy cars with no accidents noted and then years later the car turns out to be flooded.

i think he's confused because this used to be a car forum way back when, so he expected people to have basic competencies when it comes to automotive knowledge

[bjstare]

^FYI Car enthusiast =/= mechanic

I know lots about cars, and can do minor maintenance (brakes, oil, suspension - i.e. basic competency), but if I was buying a used car (anything >$30k), you better believe I'd take it for an inspection.

[ercchry]

Past repair history is usually sufficient for me, plus nothing weird when driving it

Repair history shows a pattern of either lemon or abuse, plus who did the work. Oem maintenance schedule followed? Or bottom of the barrel lube shop maintenance? Etc, etc

[Rocket1k78]

Originally posted by Thaco
i think he's confused because this used to be a car forum way back when, so he expected people to have basic competencies when it comes to automotive knowledge

This was a car forum?!?!?! I only signed up because i had a question about pressure treated decking vs comp and since ive been on here ive gotten amazing info on strollers and front loads

Originally posted by cjblair
^FYI Car enthusiast =/= mechanic

I know lots about cars, and can do minor maintenance (brakes, oil, suspension - i.e. basic competency), but if I was buying a used car (anything >$30k), you better believe I'd take it for an inspection.

Thank you

[Shlade]

To be 100% honest from personal experience I'd rather just sell the vehicle. I don't have all the time in the world to take a car to a shop to get inspected and sure as hell don't want to be leaving my vehicle anywhere. If it means taking a little less so be it.

[Skyline_Addict]

The only time I've done inspections were for out of town purchases. In addition to clean carproof/carfax, these are useful in helping me decide whether I make the trip or not. If I do, I'll most likely be going to buy the car sans any unforeseen circumstances such as the car getting into an accident right before I get there. I've always been able to chat with the mechanic doing the inspection over the phone, to get more commentary on the overall condition of the car than what the inspection checklist provides. I've never had an owner have an issue with taking it for the inspection on my behalf; it probably helps that I pay for the inspection directly to the shop beforehand which shows seriousness to buy.

Overall car price is a big factor too. If I'm buying a Porsche, it's getting inspected no matter what.

[M.alex]

I would gladly take a lesser amount if it meant an immediate sale and I didn't have to dick around - my time is more valuable than a few bucks.

My *worst* automotive sales experiences were trying to sell a car on kijiji and then on here. I had some fvckers on here waste my time going for a test drive, then leave me a deposit cheque because they needed an extra week to pull funds together, and then completely disappear on me; meanwhile i didn't dare cash the cheque because for all I knew it would bounce.

[zhao]

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He couldn't be bothered to take an hour out of his day for me to have the pepper inspected.

Literally zero people I've had inspect a car bought it. In my experience you were wasting his time and he was wise to take the first offer who was actually buying it.

What were you taking it for an inspection for? You wanted to know if the tranny was going to grenade or the engine was going to blow up? right? Well, inspections dont do that. All inspections come back with is a list of bullshit at an inflated price that would have scared you running on a 08 porsche suv. I'm guessing that thing would have needed brakes on the front or back (because they were at 50%, better change the rotors too cuz its basically a vw and they are designed to wear down with hte pad), some random suspension bushings/ball joints/etc, probably had oil sweat somewhere or some random leak that isn't really a problem (but you need a 2g part or or 2g in labour to fix it cuz it's a MAJOR!1!!1 leak), and they would have called every fluid in the book as needing to be changed, plus a OEM windshield. Probably would have given you a 8g estimate.

I just sold a car that three different people took for inspections and not one inspection matched the other; complete bag of lies on every one. Here is the items that only 1 out of 3 mechanics said were wrong, the other 2 said they were perfectly fine.

- every bushing on the rear and was completely rotted out(this one pissed me off the most as I had just changed out a bunch 6 months+ prior that were starting to squeak, and knew the rest were mint, didn't even have cracks in them, let alone rotted out)
- brakes were completely shot all 4 corners (lol pads were at about 30%rear, 60+% in the front.)
- coolant leak (I owned the car for 3 years and never had to top it up once, nor was it down on coolant, nor was there actually a coolant leak lol)
- needed new headlight housings (lol?)

These inspections were all done by these people's trusted mechanics too lol.

[zhao]

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Probably the biggest thing a PPI is good for is accident damage and repairs that haven't been noted.

its not even good for accident damage. wtf does a mechanic know about body repairs. They can't tell if something has been repaired before or not. It's also not on their 55 point or whatever inspection report. ALl they can tell you is if the suspension is fucked, but hey, if the suspension is fucked, it likely drives pretty badly.

I recommend people saving their money and just doing their own inspection.

mechanical check:
drive the car for 15 minutes (need to get it to temp + 10 minutes to see if it oveheats), WOT it a lot, take it to redline, put it through every gear (780tuners knows all about the "5 speed" evo 9 MR. if its auto make sure the RPMs show its not missing a gear. I've seen sticky solenoid issues on a lexus where it would skip from 1st to 3rd), check the tires, check if they are bald on the inside. check the brake pads, rotors. put your finger on the underside engine undercover at the back and see if its coated in grime if you can't see under there (oil leak, tranny leak, or coolant leak very possible if so), try to to touch the bottom of the tranny before you drive it to see if it's oily there as well unless you can see, check the oil to see if there is something wrong with it, or it was changed 5 minutes ago. shine a flashlight all around the rad and down at the top of the engine undercover, + all around hte engine were you can see, checking for oil/coolant leaks. if you see oily grime you have a positive on a leak most likely. do the same with the power steering + lines coming off it. check the level of the power steering to see if it's down. check everything. make sure the heat blows consistently hot (inconsistent = air pocket = why is there an air pocket), make sure the AC works, all windows go up and down fine, truck release, remote, etc etc etc etc. everything).

When driving swing the car side to side like grandma is doing an autocross slalom. Any funny noises = a potential problem. grinding one direction vs another from a corner = a wheel bearing most likely. any popping = potential ball joints. clunking could be anything, but often bushings. squeaking = likely bushings. If you feel ambitious you can even jack a corner of the car up and give the wheel a shake with your hands on top and below and see if it pivots up and down. any movement = wheel bearing. If it has air ride leaking bags are a pretty common prob, especially on german shit. If its old with air suspension i'd swing back an hour after you saw it and see if its sagging somewhere. A lot of people dump mercs for this reason.

body check rust:
check the quarter panel inner lips. see if there is any obvious surface rust there, if so, it will rot out eventually. check the bottom of the rockers for damage, people like running over curbs and they'll rot out. check the bottom of the doors on the inside, if doors are going to rust they're going to rust between the outer skin and the door shell at the bottom first, because moisture can get stuck in there and rot it out. it will happen at the bottom. check the bottom of the fenders, rocks pelt this area and take it down to bare metal, its a big problem if its starting to rust here. if its a truck check the bottom of the tail gate on the inside, especially if it was line-X'ed, because they often fill the drain holes. tail gates are expensive to replace.

body check for repairs:
check for tooling marks (paint missing is obvious, non painted bolts check to see if they have defects in them from being turned and torqued) to see if panels were off. door hinge bolts, pop the hood and look at the top bolts on the fenders. there is almost no reason to take these parts off unless the car was in an accident, so this is a good amatuer test to determine that. if you have tooling marks on fender bolts 99% chance it was in an accident. Do the same with the trunk or hatch. these are all painted bolts so it will be obvious if a tool was used to take the bolts off. check the rad support bolts as well on the top. these aren't painted usually but you can still see tooling marks if its been mucked with (probably replaced if so). if the rad is weld on, check the headlight bolts to see if they were out.

If you know what you are looking for you can check the paint as well. Any aftermarket paint job will have a defect somewhere, I dont care what shop does it, there will be evidence. You'll have an edge where they stopped painting (check jams, sometimes it will be a hard edge you can feel, sometimes it'll just be visible that there a layer that stops), you'll have a dust nib somewhere on 99% of paint jobs (because 99% of shops do not wetsand the entire panel, you'll have a rock chip cleared over because they couldn't fix it as they were just blending that panel. I worked at one of the top 3 shops in Edmonton for a very long time (any given week we likely had something in the shop currently worth 200k+), and I know it was very hard to tell if we touched a panel or not, but if it was clean and given enough time, i could find something somewhere. I can easily find defects even on dirty cars for most shops work. Check for dull spots on the 1/4 panel C pillars too. shops like to cut corners and like to stop thier clear coat in this area so they dont have to paint the whole roof rail. it'll look fine for a few years then dull out. check for hard lines or missing/peeling paint below belt moldings, around door handles, around trim. Shit shops will mask these things off rather then removing them to save money; that means corners were cut and you probably dont want that car, because they probably cut corners elsewhere too. stand back and look at the paint; if it is exceptionally orange peely or dull compared to the rest of the car, it was likely done in a shithole as well, and if a lot of the car is like that, it likely was likely fixed in a back alley shop and was potentially a write off.



Do that and you can skip the bloody mechanical inspection from a guy trying to tell you you need 3g worth of bullshit fluid flushes because you just did a better inspection then you can buy from a mechanic IMO.

[SkiBum5.0]

^ or you could just pay a shop $185 to PPI it, and it's the sellers time (if he/she accepts). It's a buyers market, the OP got a seller who didn't care about the extra dough. I will still PPI anything German/Italian, or anything without service records.

[Twin_Cam_Turbo]

I had a buyer PPI my Mazdaspeed Miata, I knew it was older and expected a huge list of things, some potentially actually needed and some BS. It came back with rear brakes at 30% and nothing more, we made a deal leaving him more than enough to do the rear brakes and we both left happy. That's my only real experience with inspections, otherwise I've found it very easy to sell personal vehicles privately without people asking for inspections, as long as you present them well.